As a student with little cash at hand, how should I begin my investment journey? I've read a lot of personal finance articles so I am familiar with terms like ETFs, Index Funds, bonds etc.?

What you invest in matters a lot. I cannot emphasise this enough.

Starting out is easy. You can follow the steps.

The psychology / own human behaviour is actually the difficult part. Here's what I mean by that:

I started off with POEMS ShareBuilder Plan and unfortunately, I didn't think on a deeper level before I jumped in 3 years ago. I was a stock noob and naively thought that I hold long term everything will turn out OK.

However like Mr Buffett said, "Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre."

I really feel this acutely now. 😂 Worse, somemore I DCA. Hahaha. epic fail.

Yesterday & today, I sold all my shares to realise a few thousands of losses, so that I can recycle the remaining capital elsewhere into better companies.

You may think wah, so gunho but I mulled over it for a few months. In the end, I decided that the longer I drag this out, the worse it will become and it did. Because the fundamentals of these traditional companies have been severely impacted not just due to COVID-19, but the increasingly difficult business environment that they're in are disrupted by technology left, right, centre.

Meanwhile, I have found great companies along the way. I don't want to waste any more time and money on mediocre businesses. And this quote resonated with me:

"Why add more of your hard-earned money to stocks that aren't working?"

• William O'Neil, How to Make Money in Stocks

I called the broker this morning to inform them to proceed termination. Strangely, I felt liberated. The only pity is the 3 years time lost. Money can be earned back but once time passes, you cannot get it back.

Hope my lesson will inform you and anyone who's reading this. Also, if you can, connect / network more with other investors. I find many of them have a wealth of experience (tho' they don't tell you like I did, I'm sure they also lost money haha everyone learns from experience) and I learn so much from them.

You can also watch some of these fantastic investors to pick their brains.

We don't have such a high-level social circle, so I watched these videos to educate myself and by learning from them, we also improve our mindset and how we approach things going forward.

• ARK: The five platforms of disruptive innovation

https://youtu.be/m4_AAmLpwR8

• The value of stories in business Aswath Damodaran Talks at Google

https://youtu.be/uH-ffKIgb38

• Kathy Xu: China's Queen of Venture Capital

https://youtu.be/VeHP3b0ccFM

Lastly, remember to invest only what you're prepared to lose. Invest safe and all the best! 😊​​​

Depending on how old you are and your income method either via allowance or working part time, it's good if you have some emergency cash ready before you start investing as you must be prepared to part with your investing monies for at least the next 3-5 years.

for Beginners, a good choice could be looking into roboadvisors like SYFE or stashaway so you wouldn't have to be too bothered about the portfolio rebalancing.

Open a SCB Jumpstart Account. Now.
Only then you can follow all other suggestions here.

Dont worry anon just take your with your journey! Use your free time to read up more and then you can start investing your money once you start to earn your salary and have saved up enough for your emergency funds. Knowledge is power and use your time now to set you up for your future!